3 children killed in house fire near Danville

The fire was reported at about 1:20 a.m. Friday outside Danville, about 75 miles west of Stroudsburg.

“It doesn’t get much worse than this,” Chief Butch Kriner of the Southside Fire Company in Riverside said.

The Northumberland County coroner identified the victims as 13-year old Daniel Dissinger, 7-year old Gavin Dissinger and 2-year old Arthur Dissinger. The deaths were ruled accidental. The children’s mother was at work at the time of the fire, Kriner said.

He said a 13-year-old boy and 14-year-old girl managed to escape from the home and were treated for injuries that weren’t life-threatening. Another child was staying at a friend’s house overnight, he said.

The home had almost completely collapsed by the time the first crews arrived, officials said. “It was all but in the basement by the time we got there, so I could not tell you where it started,” Kriner said.